Once Upon a Time's Ginnifer Goodwin Previews Wicked Childbirth, a 'Significant' Baby Naming and Season 3′s Super-Secret Final Scene

ABC’s Once Upon a Time will make a very special delivery this Sunday at 8/7c, as Mary Margaret aka Snow White gives birth to a baby that the Wicked Witch is hot to get her green mitts on. With an eye on the imminent addition to the Charming clan, TVLine invited Ginnifer Goodwin — whose baby with husband/costar Josh Dallas should soon arrive with a bit less drama — to preview Season 3′s final three hours, including the top-secret scene that sets the stage for Season 4.

TVLINE | I probably should know the answer to this, but I’ve never bothered to ask you myself: Which pregnancy came first? Would [series creators] Adam [Horowitz] and Eddy [Kitsis] have made Snow White pregnant regardless? It’s something that we had sort of discussed over the past year-and-a-half. They knew that there was an “Untitled Ginny Goodwin/Josh Dallas Project” in the works, and we knew there was a very much-titled Snow White/Prince Charming Project in the works, and we were hoping that the timing would overlap. And they had given themselves some wiggle room in the writing. We knew that the characters wanted to become pregnant, so once we became pregnant in real life, they could say, “All right, here we go.”

TVLINE | But once they did write it in, did they give you a heads-up that Snow’s pregnancy would not be without drama? Well, we knew that from the beginning! [Laughs] But what was lovely – and unexpected, just because no one thinks of these things that far enough in advance – is they found a way to help me be an extremely pregnant woman while filming. I was not asked to leap off any cliffs or things like that myself, once we knew there really was a baby in there.

TVLINE | I think back to a couple of episodes ago, where Snow was kicking back in the apartment, her feet up on a hassock….Oh yes. One of my assistant directors actually got for me — and carried around the woods — a leather lounge chair. It went everywhere with us, including on mountaintops.

TVLINE | When I visited the set in February, you and Jennifer Morrison used the word “creepy” to describe the Season 3B storyline. And really, what’s creepier than having the Big Bad going after a baby? Absolutely. There’s something very Rosemary’s Baby about the whole thing to us, and I feel like that was almost honored in the wardrobe choices for Mary Margaret — though no one ever confirmed that that was any kind of inspiration. But all of those baby doll dresses of the ’60s eras kind of gave us an additional layer of the creeps.

TVLINE | Going into this Sunday’s episode, “Kansas,” Snow is in labor. Are she and Charming going to be able to lose themselves at all in the joy of childbirth? No, that wouldn’t be near dramatic enough. [Laughs] We’re going to be looking over our shoulders the entire time, because we know that Zelena is after our newborn, in order to turn back time and change her destiny and possibly erase Regina from existence. We are not even going to get through the actual pushing part without there being complications that are not medically related.

TVLINE | One of our readers wondered: “Why not deliver the baby at the apartment, which has the protection spell?”That’s a good point. I kept raising the question, “Why is Charming all right with Dr. Whale down there between Mary Margaret’s legs?” After all they’ve been through. [Laughs]

TVLINE | Without revealing anything, will Baby Charming’s name make a certain amount of sense? Yes, the baby’s name is going to be significant, absolutely significant. In fact, every time I not only read the script but then every time we filmed it, I got very, genuinely emotional. It was an excellent move — and very unexpected.

TVLINE | Might you and Josh steal the name? [Laughs] You know what — the number of people who’ve stopped me on the street and said, “If it’s a girl, are you going to name it Emma? If it’s a boy, will you name him Henry?” is really staggering. I have to say it’s not something we are considering for real life, because we have to keep real life sacred. But it’s really funny to me.

TVLINE | You’ve always relished exploring the family dynamic with Snow, Charming and Emma. Have you thus appreciated what they did along those lines this season? Because they’ve had some very nice moments. Yes. Though I don’t know what’s in store for next season — except that we’ll be thrown all kinds of curveballs – I hope that bringing another child into our family is going to pave the way for even more of those moments, because they’re always my favorite. I like our “heart-to-hearts on logs” far more than I do any of the swashbuckling

TVLINE | When we spoke on set this winter, Once Upon a Time Charmings Cursecould you have imagined back then that Snow White had cast the curse? You know what? Truth be told, I did know. Josh and I were sworn to secrecy — even our castmates didn’t know — because there were certain things the creators realized that we needed to gear up to play, in terms of getting to the point at which we made the decision to [cast the curse]; it couldn’t just be something impulsive. But we are terrible secret-keepers, so it was really hard to sit on set with our lips zipped, listening to everybody talk about who they thought cast it.

TVLINE | The scene itself was so romantic, all the assorted beats within that flashback sequence. Oh, I loved it. We loved, loved, loved filming that. That was the last time that I was physically able to get up and won off the floor! So that scene meant a lot.

TVLINE | The Wicked Witch storyline at large has been great fun, with the assorted Oz nods — even throwaway lines like, “Out of my way, Munchkin.”And I feel like Rebecca Made made it so much more fun. Not a slam against any other actors, but she had so much fun with it, she made me understand a whole new motivation for this character…. It’s a testament to the writing and the acting of the people that they brought on board, that they made that world so new and refreshing and complicated and fun.REBECCA MADER, GINNIFER GOODWIN It was a joy, honestly, to watch. Jennifer and I have said this before, but there were moments where we would realize we were smiling through scenes because we were sitting there as audience members as opposed to actors playing characters, because we would be on the ride with the Wicked Witch.

TVLINE | All told, how did the split season work out for the actors? We preferred it, to be honest. Nothing against what we’ve done in the past, but I felt like we packed more of a punch, splitting the season up this way. I appreciate that the audience experienced more momentum, and I really appreciated that ultimately there was a common goal for each of those halves, as far as all of our characters banding together and going after the same thing, even if we had individual agendas.

TVLINE | That really was a theme of both halves, and even a bit of late Season 2. We even saw that wonderful growth for Snow and Regina as frenemies. We kept making this joke during the first half of this season, that we were “The Nevengers,” but there’s some truth in that. You have all of these “superhero”-type characters who normally would be following their own agendas. To be honest, I hope that it continues like this. I also liked the change of scenery, in that it was like doing two miniseries a year. It kept us all invigorated.

TVLINE | You joke about The Nevengers, but last week’s battle scene with the monkeys had everyone busting out their specialty. Swords, guns, fireballs…Oh yeah. But another bone we pick is the fact that Regina doesn’t “poof” us out of all situations – and we don’t know why she doesn’t. Just “poof” us out of here!

TVLINE | What can you tease about the two-hour Season 3 finale (airing May 11)? Adam and Eddy said it definitely points at a direction for Season 4. Absolutely. In fact, I know that they have something up their sleeve that we the cast have not been made privy, in terms of the absolutely final moments of the season. I know that they are going to reveal something about the theme of next season, but we actually don’t know what it is. I don’t know that anybody does, outside of the boys and the people who filmed it. But other than that, we will tie up some odd loose ends, for sure, there will be a marriage, Killing Kennedyand I can tell you that someone’s going to be burned at a stake – there’s that doozy!

TVLINE | You’ve played Snow White — which you have said you did for your 8-year-old self — and you’ve portrayed Jackie Kennedy.… Is there any other iconic character you’d love to take on at some point in your career? Oh my gosh, I’m such a sort of literary whore…. When I went into this [profession], I wanted to play every Shakespearean heroine and bring to life every Jane Austen novel, and that’s all clearly been done… I can’t say that I have one specific character I’m dying to play, but there are SO many books that I’m always reading or revisiting where I go, “Oh, if only they’d make an adaptation of this.” I loved [NatGeo's Killing Kennedy]. I loved making it, I loved the product and everyone involved…. I’ll certainly be chasing other dreams along the way